More Good New Year's News.... Happyhappyjoyjoy! :)

Well, guess what?! Having realised that I AM, in fact, totally devastated by the loss of my iblogs archives over the past year, I went and searched Google. And have been searching for the last two hours. For those of you in the same boat, here is what I discovered. Iblogs is a real arse, and yet, Google has us in cyberspace it its cache!

I searched with keywords using my blog site name, the arse-wipe server and the word 'archives', Like so:

chupaflor, ' a day in the life', iblogs, archives

And tickety-boo, a whole score of my pages turned up. Utterly inaccessible, of course as the aforementioned dregs of the derriere is defunct. (Bastards). And yet, intuition being what it has to be when one is as computer illiterate as I am, I pressed the highlit 'cache' button, and lo! and behold! There they were. Months of them. Not all, but months of them, which I copied , and now have to find a way to insert them into a file but they are safely saved in a drafts folder of my mail.

A small triumph. Another bit of New Year's good news!

Mostly the photographs didn't copy, and I am especially choked about that one as I think of Zeus up in a tree, playing 'Hound of Hell', with fiery camera red-eye, making him look like a daemon. You'll remember of course. And I still have that photo in my hard drive, but havent yet learned how to post pics HERE. You might recall the time it took me to learn how to post photos on iblogs. Learning curve was steep!

You know, many native cultures believe that if you take a photograph of something, you capture a bit of its essence. I dont necessarily think that is a bad thing, as I think my own essence is limitless (I'm so modest). But seriously, on a soul level, we are limitless, right, so why would I care if someone has a piece of me? Its like a hologram. Or a drop of water. Each piece is whole unto itself, and yet the entirety isn't diminished at all for having a drop of itself here and there. Its all infinite. A fanciful analogy, maybe but I am sure you get my point. (Actually I think that The DT could explain it more articulately).

And yet, that point being made, I felt somehow that there were pieces of me floating around in cyberspace, or worse yet, gone into the ethers, completely gone. I imagined them lost in space, lonely without me, and without each other....Horrible. Silly, but horrible. (Abandonment issues?!) That's a years' worth of my journal, my thoughts and my experiences. And all of your comments! Okay, so it wont change the tide of life on this planet, and isn't that important in the grand scheme of things, but dammit, it matters to ME! Those are pieces of me/us floating out there, and I'm happy for others to have a look at them, but I want them under my own wing, so to speak. You know? Because words have power, and when I put them out there, I offer them, as a gift, but I when they are stolen from me, I don't like it.

Anyroad, I've got some of them back. Have no idea how to import or transport or teleport them to this blogsite. But they've been brought home. I take comfort from that. They are home, back with me where they belong. Looking rather a lot worse for wear, with keywords being highlighted, and arrows everywhere, and no photos, no background blog template to show them off as they were. An intent. An offer. A place to express myself, and vent....An invitation to a conversation....and a moment of life. Yet, I feel so much happier knowing that they are home.....

Bloody, Bloody bastards, those iblogs. Yeah, so it was free, but you don't give someone a home, let them get settled in for over a year, make friends and form bonds, and then say, "Ooops. You cant have that now, piss off". And now we can't even contact them and tell them how annoying this all is?! Or ask them what can be done about it. I still hope against hope that the site will come up again so I can retrieve the rest of my lost stories. Particularly, 'Muriel and the Christmas cactus', which meant a lot to me. And to her, I'm sure, dead though she is.....

So aside from that little achievement which nearly made my eyes cross in frustration whilst searching and figuring things out, Sunday was lovely. Mostly, or totally spent on my own, but that's okay. I chopped kindling, played ball and Frisbee with the dogs, brought some stuff for mosaicing into the studio - then panicked and left. But I DID go in there. I must have a phobia or something. I blogged and read a lot. A real Sunday.

Got a fire going in the wood stove, and of course I found the lost children (or some of them) from the old blog...... A successful day, in my opinion. :)

It was lovely to revisit the comments made by everyone, and realise what a tight little community we had there. I hope Claudio is okay. And am hoping that Reg will be blogging from her apartment soon. I miss them. Miss you all. Mostly I miss Bloomsie. Haven't heard much from her but got a brief note recently saying she's okay.... The tribe.....

I've been reading some blogs by people with infertility issues quite a lot lately. Its been a comfort to me. Will make a list soon of various really good blogs I read. There are a lot of very big hearted, strong, fragile, feeling and wonderful people out there!!!!

I was given a HUGE bag of fresh basil from an importer the other day (a few bunches of which I gave to fellow workers, to their apparent delight), who swanned through my till with the querry, "Do you like Basil?" Huh? Who doesnt. Somewhat bemused, I said of course I did, and he came back into the store a few moments later with the bag, saying he had a large shipment from Guatemala bound for the distributors in Vancouver and Toronto. Wow, how nice is that?! (Good thing I have a policy of making sure that everyone who passes through my till leaves the store with a smile!)

Tonight I plan to make gnocchi, with butter and basil pesto. I've never made it before, of course, so am a little concerned, but what the hell, at least I'm not doing what I usually do....which is try a new recipe when I have company! I have no anchovies, but DO have pine nuts. And how hard can it be, really? Olive oil, Basil, pine nuts, salt, pepper, parmagianno porfavore, and garlic. Wee potato dumplings, boiled and then sauteed in butter before being drenched in the pesto. Utterly yum. (A few slivers of lemon rind maybe, do you think?)

Yo, Cuisinart, here I come!!!!

Have a good night, everyone, and a happy tomorrow! Ciao my Chickedees!